Semi-Sweet

by Roisin Meaney

  “Roll over.”

  It had been Hannah who’d led him to Leah. He’d complained of aches and pains after a longer-than-usual bout in the garden, digging up her ancient box hedge and replacing it with willow fencing, and Hannah had dropped in to Leah’s salon the following day and bought him a gift certificate for a massage.

  She hadn’t asked him about the woman he’d met, the woman he was leaving her for. He’d expected her to, he’d been ready to tell her the truth—it was the least she deserved—but she hadn’t asked. She’d find out soon enough, of course: Like most Irish towns, Clongarvin was too small, and he was too well known. How would she feel when she heard Leah’s name, knowing that she herself had been the one who’d brought them together?

  Leah moved from his chest to his legs, stroking from knee to thigh in strong upward movements. For such a petite creature, she gave a massage that was deep and satisfying. She eased his legs gently apart and began to knead his inner thighs, using slow, circular movements with her knuckles. As she inched toward his groin, he felt himself stiffening pleasantly in response.

  “Why, hello there,” she smiled, and Patrick reached for her, sliding the robe off her shoulders, and Hannah was forgotten.

  It was the longest two hours of her life, but she’d gotten through it with nobody having guessed. She smiled and thanked them all for their help—her parents and Adam, and Adam’s two cousins, and one of their girlfriends whom she’d met for the first time a week ago—and she drank the champagne when they toasted her success, and she ate enough Dover sole not to arouse anyone’s interest, although every mouthful of her favorite fish was an effort.

  She told them that Patrick was in bed with food poisoning, and they all accepted it—why wouldn’t they?

  “Oh, the poor thing,” her mother said. “I’ll never forget how awful I felt after those prawns that time—remember, Stephen?”

  “I certainly do,” Stephen answered, winking at Hannah. “Not one of your finer moments, I’d have to say.”

  Geraldine shot him a stern look. “Very funny.” She turned back to Hannah. “What did Patrick eat?”

  “Er, sausages, I think.” Hannah watched as Adam filled her glass, and willed the conversation to move on.

  Near the end of the meal, when she was doing her best with a slice of lemon cheesecake, Adam leaned across and said quietly, “You okay? Anything up?”

  She shook her head. “Just a bit stressed about the opening, that’s all.” Her face was rigid from smiling. She hated lying to him.

  Of course she’d have to tell him. She’d have to tell her parents. But not tonight, when she’d hardly taken it in herself. Maybe it was good that she had this distraction while Patrick’s bombshell was still so fresh and raw. Maybe by the time she got home, the first shock waves would be receding and the urge to smash something or have serious hysterics would have passed.

  But the thought of the dark and empty house waiting for her, the thought of going home to nobody, the thought of all the unanswered questions, caused a new stab of despair. She lifted her glass and drank too quickly, splashing a little red wine onto the front of her horrible black dress. No matter, she thought, dabbing roughly at the damp patch. Who’d see a stain on black? And anyway, she wasn’t planning to wear it again. She hated it, and now it was the dress she’d been wearing when Patrick had broken up with her. It was the breakup dress. How could she ever look at it and not remember?

  He’s gone. She said the words in her head, and a dart of pain shot through her. She pushed her glass toward the wine bottle. “More,” she said to Adam. “Just a bit.” Not too much or the truth might come out, and then the night would be ruined for everyone.

  She shared a taxi home with her parents, having truthfully pleaded a headache when the others began talking about a nightclub. The driver with the woolly hat was still on duty, the same soft jazzy music still wafting from his speakers, the same appley smell in his cab. Hardly surprising, Hannah supposed, in a place the size of Clongarvin to have the driver who brought you out taking you home again. She sat beside her mother in the back, afraid suddenly that Patrick would still be in the house.

  “I must say I really like that restaurant,” Geraldine said. “The food is just right, and they don’t give you huge portions like other places.”

  “Mmm.”

  How long did it take to pack up your half of a relationship? What if he were just leaving now, what if they met him on the doorstep, surrounded by cases? She should have stayed out longer, ignored her pounding head, and gone on smiling for another hour or two.

  “And that waitress couldn’t have been more helpful.”

  “No.”

  The house was dark, and there was no sign of a suitcase outside. Hannah’s heart sank as she opened the taxi door, wanting him there now as fervently as she’d dreaded it moments earlier.

  “We’ll wait till you get inside,” her mother said. “Have you your key out?”

  The hall was warm. Patrick’s leather jacket was missing from its usual hook. His keys, still attached to their fish-shaped key ring, were on the hall table. His golf umbrella was gone. She kept her coat on as she walked slowly through the house. His laptop, his books, his CDs—all absent. His toothbrush, his pajamas, his slippers, his clothes. His aftershave, his razor. His tortoiseshell comb. The toffee-colored bathrobe she’d given him for Christmas, less than two weeks ago.

  She crunched on something as she crossed the bedroom and bent to pick up an earring. She remembered the biscuit tin falling to the floor earlier and now saw it sitting back on the dressing table with her jewelry inside. She dropped in the stray earring and sat on the bed, feeling bereft.

  He was gone. He’d left her, and he was gone. He’d met someone else, and he’d packed up everything and left her. They were over. There was no “they” anymore.

  She kicked off her shoes and pulled back the duvet and climbed into bed in her clothes. In her new black dress and black coat and blue scarf, in her foundation and mascara and eye shadow and blusher and lipstick. She curled into a ball and closed her eyes. She wrapped her arms tightly around herself, yearning for his. Wanting the warm weight of him on top of her, wanting his mouth tasting hers. Wanting to pull his pillow toward her but afraid of what that might do to her.

  She wished she’d had more to drink.

  Patrick lay on his back in the dark, wide awake. Leah was facing away from him, a faint asthmatic wheeze to her breathing. He moved his head and saw 2:35 blinking redly on the front of the clock radio. The room was brighter than Hannah’s bedroom at night, the cream curtains no barrier against a streetlight directly outside. There was more traffic here, too, on Clongarvin’s second-busiest street. He’d get used to it.

  He was going to have to get used to a lot of things.

  He turned onto his side and reached toward Leah, stroking the line of warm, naked skin from hip to rib cage. She made a soft sound as he moved his hand to rest on her breast. He suddenly found himself remembering Hannah’s breasts, how much fuller they were. He pushed the image away and ran a thumb slowly across Leah’s nipple, back and forth, feeling it stiffen in response to his touch. Leah stirred again, her breathing lengthening, and pressed her body back into his, her hand sliding onto his thigh. He reached past her flat stomach, and she drew a breath slowly as his hand found its way between her legs.

  Hannah was sweating when she woke. The clock beside the bed read 3:11. There was a tightness around her throat, and something was bunched uncomfortably at her waist. She pushed the duvet back and groped for the lamp switch. As the room flooded with light, as she took in the empty space beside her, as she looked down at her rumpled clothes, it all came flooding back.

  She swung her legs out and stood on the floor. She unwound her scarf and pulled off her coat, and let them both fall. She tugged at the black dress until the three giant buttons popped, one by one, and clattered across the wooden boards. She dragged the dress over her head, yanked off her tights and panties, and unhoo
ked her bra. She threw everything in the vague direction of the laundry hamper and reached under her pillow and pulled out her gray tartan pajamas. She put them on and regarded her ruined face in the mirror.

  He was gone. He was in another woman’s bed now. After fifteen months together he’d left her—and she hadn’t had a clue that anything was wrong.

  “He’s gone,” she said aloud, her voice sounding surprisingly steady. “He’s walked out on me.”

  The shock of it was still raw, the abruptness of his departure still hard to take in. But of course, if she were perfectly honest—and the dead of night was the easiest time to be honest—wasn’t the real shock not that he’d walked out on her but that they’d ever gotten together in the first place?

  He wasn’t her type, and she certainly wasn’t his. She’d been aware of him before they’d met—the man who had edited the local paper for several years wasn’t averse to having his very photogenic features appear quite regularly in his own society pages. He was also known personally to Joseph Finnegan, who owned the bakery where Hannah worked—and if he wasn’t exactly a regular customer there, he certainly put in an appearance from time to time.

  All the same, he and Hannah didn’t come face-to-face until she’d been working at Finnegan’s for the best part of ten years—and that encounter might not have happened if she hadn’t taken an hour off one day for a dental appointment.

  She’d arrived back at the bakery to find Joseph behind the counter, as usual. He was serving a customer as she pushed the door open.

  “Hannah, there you are. Do you know Patrick?”

  His bulk took her by surprise; in the photos you wouldn’t realize quite how big he was. His woody scent was pleasant, if a little overpowering. The smile came instantly and looked well practiced.

  “I don’t believe we’ve met,” he said, his big, warm hand not so much shaking as cradling hers. Turning back to Joseph.“Where have you been hiding her, you scoundrel?” Hannah thought, Flirt, but felt the color warming her face all the same.

  “Hannah works behind the scenes,” Joseph said. “My best baker.”

  “Is that a fact?” Patrick released her hand. His navy tie was slightly crooked, his shirt very white. “I hope he pays you well then,” he said.

  She was aware of the numbness around her mouth, the dentist’s injection only half worn off. Her lips bare of any color; no point in lipstick when you’re going in for a filling. She attempted a smile, hoping it didn’t look as lopsided as it felt. “Oh, he does,” she said, uncomfortable under his scrutiny, waiting for him to switch his attention back to Joseph.

  “I’m glad to hear it.”

  The effortless charm of him; he was well used, no doubt, to getting what he wanted. The echo of his warm grasp still on her hand. “Well…”

  “Nice to meet you,” he said. “Better let you get back.”

  Hardly an auspicious beginning—and their second meeting, three weeks later on the steps of the library, was equally uneventful.

  “Well,” he said, his arms full of books, “if it isn’t Joe’s prize baker.”

  She ignored the stab of pleasure—why shouldn’t he remember her? “Hello there.”

  More casually dressed today in a gray flannel shirt and black jeans, a scattering of dark hairs at the open V of his shirt. The same thick, green scent as before. Nelson Mandela, she read on the spine of the uppermost book.

  She held the door open for him, the top of her head barely reaching his shoulders. “Many thanks,” he said, his shirtsleeve brushing her arm as he passed. She left him at the desk and wandered among the shelves, glimpsing him occasionally as he browsed through the history and politics sections across the room. By the time she’d selected her two novels, there was no sign of him.

  In the weeks that followed, he rarely crossed her mind. She saw his photo in the paper once, standing among a group of similarly suited men and one red-haired older woman. “At the Chamber of Commerce dinner,” the caption read before listing their names. He was striking in a dark suit and a dazzling white shirt, the tallest in the gathering. Probably had his pick of Clongarvin’s businesswomen.

  His eventual approach, a couple of months after their initial meeting, took her completely by surprise. She was leaving the bakery at her usual three o’clock, and as she turned out of the doorway, she walked straight into him.

  “Oh—” She gasped, the momentum causing her hands to fly toward his chest to steady herself.

  He grabbed her wrists—“Oops—” and for an instant they were entangled in an awkward sort of embrace, the intimacy of it, the shocking closeness of him, bringing a flush to her cheeks before she sprang back.

  “Sorry,” she murmured, flustered, half laughing, replacing her shoulder bag, smoothing her jacket. “Didn’t see you there.”

  “Now, that’s not something I hear very often.”

  He’d completely recovered his equilibrium—if indeed he’d ever lost it. Maybe the phenomenon of females flinging themselves into his arms was nothing unusual. “Actually,” he went on, “it was you I was coming to see—looks like I almost missed you.”

  “Me?” She regarded him in astonishment. “Why?” She couldn’t imagine what he might want her for.

  He laughed. “Well, believe it or not,” he said, “I’ve come to ask you out.”

  It was so totally unexpected, the last thing she thought she’d hear. He was practically the polar opposite of the men she’d been involved with up to this, the unremarkable but generally dependable handful of boyfriends she’d gone through since her teens. On the other hand, none of them had lasted beyond a few months.

  But she hardly knew this man. Did he even remember her name? They’d met twice, for hardly a minute each time. It had been weeks since they’d even laid eyes on each other. He was too good-looking, too confident. She’d be playing with fire.

  “You don’t think it would be a good idea,” he said, still smiling. Clearly he was amused by her. She didn’t know whether to be offended. “Even after nearly running me down just now?”

  It was impossible not to smile back. “I hardly know you,” she said. “We’ve barely met.”

  “All the more reason,” he said, “for us to go out. You can cross-examine me for the night and decide if I’m worth getting to know.”

  She wasn’t glamorous. She’d never appeared in the society pages dressed in something long and spangly. Surely he could pick and choose—what on earth had made him choose her? And what could they possibly have in common?

  “I’m quite eligible,” he was saying. “I’m pretty solvent, I have all my own teeth—and the hair is real, too.”

  She laughed. “I did wonder about the hair.”

  Then again, why shouldn’t he pick her? She might not be a raving beauty—and she certainly didn’t have the kind of figure that stopped men in their tracks—but maybe he’d had his fill of those; maybe he was looking for someone with a bit more substance.

  And really, what did she have to lose? Wouldn’t she enjoy an evening in the company of a man who was well able to amuse her, even if nothing came of it?

  “Where were you thinking of taking me?” she asked.

  She should have known better. She should have trusted her instincts that day and resisted him. Because by the end of their first date, she’d already been half in love with him—and because she’d known all along, hadn’t she, that he was going to break her heart sooner or later.

  She pattered across the landing into the bathroom, hardly aware of the ice-cold tiles under her bare feet, oblivious to the tears that were trailing blackly down her face.

  “I can’t believe it,” Alice said. “He walked out on her, just like that?”

  “Just like that, no warning whatsoever.” Geraldine pressed keys on the calculator. “I don’t know how she kept it up at the restaurant.” She turned the wine-colored stilettos upside down and crossed out “€150” on the sticker and wrote “€100” beside it in blue marker. “She said he’d got
food poisoning; nobody suspected a thing.”

  “Well, why would you? It’s the last thing you’d be expecting…Poor Hannah, though. How’s she coping?”

  Geraldine replaced the stilettos and picked up a pair of chunky black platforms. “Badly. She’s very upset, naturally.” She used the calculator again. “Less thirty percent is forty-eight ninety-nine. Will I round it up to fifty?”

  “Do.” Alice watched as Geraldine made the change. “But how could he leave her now, when she’s just about to open the shop? Talk about bad timing. Is there someone else, is that it?”

  Geraldine’s mouth twisted as she turned the shoes right side up. “Apparently. He wouldn’t say who.”

  “God, that’s awful.”

  “Of course, I never trusted him,” Geraldine said.

  It wasn’t true. They had trusted him, with his big job at the paper and his flowers every time he and Hannah dropped by, and going golfing with Stephen just like a real son-in-law would have done. But it felt good to say it now.

  “He never appealed to me. He was too charming by half. I always felt there was always something underhanded about him.”

  “Mmm,” Alice said. “Well, there must have been.”

  “Oh, there was. I mean, who’s to say that this woman was the first? If he strayed once, you can bet he did it other times. Hannah’s well rid of him.” Geraldine replaced the shoes. “Have we the bottom row done?”

  “I think so. What about the ones over there?”

  “Anyway,” Geraldine said, taking her stool across, “there’s plenty more fish in the sea.”

  “There is, of course—and a nice girl like Hannah won’t be waiting long, you can be sure.”

  Alice hadn’t been at the dinner in the Cookery, and neither had her husband, Tom. Hannah had suggested inviting them, but Geraldine had discouraged it.

  You know what Tom’s like after a few drinks.

  But Alice is your boss, Hannah had said, and Tom works with Dad, and they’ve both been hearing about the shop forever—and they got me the clock. They might expect to be invited.